President Obama today slammed the Michigan Republicans' and Gov. Rick Snyder’s (R) drive to ram through so-called right to work bills that Obama said, “[d]on't have to do with economics. They have everything to do with politics."

What they're talking about is giving you the right to make less money….What we shouldn't be doing is try to take away your rights to bargain for better wages or working conditions.

In the latest edition of the United Technologies/National Journal Congressional Connection Poll, the majority of respondents said they oppose benefit cuts to Medicare and Social Security. An overwhelming 79% said that they wanted no cuts to Medicare at all. Only 17% said they favored some cuts; only 3% said they favored significant cuts. The numbers were similar for Social Security.

The survey polled 1,003 adults. The margin of error is plus or minus 3.7 points.

Outside of hardcore trade policy wonks, few in the United States or Canada have ever heard of the impending Trans-Pacific Partnership Free Trade Agreement (commonly referred to as TPP) or know much about it—and it's time that changed. The TPP is a trade agreement based around the current "P-4" (Chile, New Zealand, Brunei Darussalam and Singapore).

A group of corporate CEOs, known as the Reforming America's Taxes Equitably (RATE) Coalition, sent a letter to Congress asking for the corporate tax rate to be lowered. CEOs from 17 of the largest U.S. companies say, in the letter, that the corporate tax rate of 35% is the highest of any industrialized nation and that it leaves American companies unable to compete.

The action—organized by a growing coalition of labor, community, faith and other groups—will begin at 8 a.m. at the Lansing Center at 333 E. Michigan Avenue and the march to the state Capitol kicks off at 9 a.m. For more information, visit WeAreMich.org.

A proposed bill in Ohio would require a court to consider a person's military service when sentencing for misdemeanor or felony charges, the AFL-CIO Union Veterans Council in Ohio reports. A judge would have to take into account whether the offender has an emotional, mental or physical condition that can be traced to military service that contributed to the commission of the crime.

The bipartisan bill, S.B. 330, proposed by state Sen. Joe Schiavoni (D-Boardman), passed in the state Senate 33-0. S.B. 330 will go to the Ohio House to be voted on before the end of the lame-duck legislative session.

In 2010, the Detroit Free Press endorsed Republican Rick Snyder in his race for Michigan governor. The paper’s editorial board said it believed Snyder’s promise that he would be a “new kind of governor…a pragmatist focused like a laser on initiatives that promised to raise standards of living for all Michiganders….In short, we trusted Snyder's judgment.” But in a scathing editorial denouncing Snyder’s “abrupt about face” in backing “right to work” for less legislation, the state’s largest newspaper wrote:

More than 100,000 American consumers signed a petition asking Macy's Chief Executive Officer Terry Lundgren to drop out of the "Fix the Debt" Coalition. Fix the Debt portrays itself as dedicated to lowering the national debt, when the reality is that it is lobbying to cut Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid and give more tax breaks to the wealthiest 2%. The consumers are part of Progressive Congress, the nonprofit foundation of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, or CREDO, a progressive activist organization.

Nearly 3,000 trade union leaders have been murdered in Colombia over the past 20 years and the killing continues, with at least 35 unionists murdered so far this year. Yet behind each statistic is an individual, says Colombian lawyer and human rights activist, Yessica Hoyos Morales. Someone much like her father, Jorge Darío Hoyos Franco, a Colombian labor leader, who was assassinated in 2001 by two hired hit men.